You are reading: Hotel Voice Fall 2021

They want to be researchers, social workers, lawyers, teachers and doctors. They will be going to schools like CUNY's legendary Macaulay Honors College, Stony Brook, Harvard, Tulane, St. John's, and Stanford. They have been active in their communities and they have performed good works like volunteering at nursing homes and delivering Meals on Wheels. They are the union's 2021 scholarship winners, and they are an impressive group of promising students representing hope for the future for all of us.

Anyone who reads through the mini-bios of this year's scholarship recipients, published in this edition of the Hotel Voice, will realize that the $252,000 in college grants awarded this year is an excellent investment. The bios reveal how dedicated they are as students and how much they have accomplished at their young ages. Indeed, the 21 students who received college grants of $12,000 each this year are sure to achieve other great things in the years ahead, just as previous scholarship recipients have.

Including this year's grants, a total of $9,284,000 has now been awarded to 1,123 children of our union's members since 1987, when the college scholarship program began.

“These awards are outstanding achievements and they are the result of the dedication and hard work of students and parents alike,” HTC President Rich Maroko said. "We are very proud that these accomplished students are members of our union's family."

The 21 students who received this year's scholarships were selected by a committee of professional educators. The scholarship committee is headed by its Chairperson, Lawrence Momo, who is the Director of College Counseling at Trinity School. The other committee members are: John W. Buckley, Vice President for Undergraduate Enrollment at Fordham University; Beverly Fox, Associate Dean of Studies at Sarah Lawrence College; and Diane McCoy, Senior Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Columbia University.

It isn't easy for the committee to select the winners each year. The program is a competition and the standards the committee uses in determining the winners include careful review of all applications and accompanying documents that are submitted by the students. Academic records, community service and extracurricular activities are taken into account, as is financial need, and the committee alone decides the eventual scholarship recipients. Neither the union nor the Hotel Association have any say in the selection process.

There are other interesting notes about this year's scholarship winners. It isn't any secret that our union has always been a haven for immigrants, and among this year's winners are four students who were born outside the United States, coming from Bangladesh, China, Ecuador and the Philippines. In addition, many of the other award recipients have parents who were born outside the U.S., providing further evidence of the value immigrants represent to our country.

Our scholarship program also provides evidence that hard work is not limited to just one child per family. Two pairs of siblings are receiving scholarships this year! They are Nisha and Nissy Awuah and Matthew and Stephen Liang. In addition, 2021 scholarship recipient Nicole Dwyer is the sister of Ryan Dwyer, a 2019 scholarship winner.

As we’ve reported often in the past, the scholarship awards mean more than money for the recipients. Receiving a scholarship helps imbed in students the determination to do well in school and in their adult careers. A study conducted in 2016 verifies this. It not only found that every previous winner surveyed had graduated college or was still in school, it found that a full 90 percent of the previous scholarship winners who responded to the survey were working in the careers they had chosen for themselves as seniors in high school. There are professionals in virtually every skill set today who were recipients of our union’s scholarships, and we are confident that this year's winners will have equal success.

Another note worth reporting about the awards is that Mr. Mario Gabelli donated $185,000 towards the $252,000 in scholarships granted this year. The pandemic devastated contributions to the scholarship fund, which are based on the number of members of our union who are working. With so many members on layoff in 2020 and this year, contributions to the scholarship fund slowed to a trickle. But Mr. Gabelli rode to the rescue and his generosity enabled 15 additional scholarships to be awarded this year! We should add that Mr. Gabelli has already donated $85,000 towards next year's awards. To date, Mr. Gabelli, whose father, Joseph Gabelli, was a charter member of Local 6, has contributed a total of $451,000 to HTC's scholarship fund!

News of the scholarship awards always draws inquiries about how students may apply. Details on the competition, including eligibility requirements and how to apply, appear each year in the winter edition of this magazine and on the union's website in January.

Congratulations to this year's 21 scholarship recipients! We firmly believe that the success they have already attained in their young lives is only a preview of the great things to come.

2021 Vito J. Pitta Scholarship Award Winners

2021 Frank E. Saris Club Scholarship Award Winner

2021 Division A Scholarship Award Winner